Kristoffer Gansing
Biography
Kristoffer Gansing runs http://www.italo-phile.net/, a website dedicated to European and Italian horror films.Euro gore & horror
When it comes to gore filled extravaganzas - the Europeans have really done it all. Even to this day, with extreme films like Man Bites Dog, the vast Euro Trash field is the place to look for over the top movie experiences.
The European horror film is probably the one genre that has gotten most censorship attention in various countries over the years. The British had their big go (and are still at it!) at "video nasties" some years ago where films of such Euro masters as Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and Umberto Lenzi quite predictably were banned outright. In Sweden there was a similar case of "moral panic" in the early eighties, where censors started out on Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre moving on to banning films that had "infected" the video market, Zombie Flesh Eaters , Eaten Alive, City of The Living Dead, to name but a few. Perhaps in the long run though this kind of publicity has helped in establishing these films and their directors among film fans around the world. Not that the world need more censorship crazes but without those mentioned, there would probably be a lot less of Euro Gore and Horror afficionados out there. And truly that would be sad because the European horror film has seen some very good films over the years.
In a way it was the German expressionists who layed the foundations of genre film but arguably European horror film didn't really bloom until the Italian Giallo-films of the sixties and seventies which ultimately culminated in the gross outs of gore and cannibalism in the late seventies/early eightes. From the Euro mavericks - that are the Italian directors, Mario Bava , Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci to other original filmmakers such as the French Jean Rollin and the Spanish Amando de Ossorio and Jorge Grau, Euro horror has preservered as a continuing influence on filmmakers around the world, e.g. Brian de Palma, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Stanley, Roberto Rodriguez and others. --Kristoffer Gansing, http://www.algonet.se/~krig/gore.html